Veteran biology professors proud of the quality they developed

The term wasn’t on many lips 30 or so years ago, but assessment has been taking place on an almost daily basis for a long time in the Biology Department at Chadron State College, according to four professors who combined to teach there 133 years.

“Our curriculum was always developing and we were always trying to determine what we needed to do to make it better,” said one of the four, Dr. Jay Druecker. “We looked at the national standards, talked to our graduates, listened to area teachers and tried to find out if changes and improvements were needed. Through the years, we made a lot of changes and I think most of them proved to be the right ones.”

Druecker was the first of the four to land at Chadron State. He came in 1968 and retired a year ago, giving him 36 years of service. Dr. Ron Weedon arrived in 1971 and plans to outlast his colleagues. “I’ve been here 34 years and am still counting,” he said. “In other words, I don’t know when I’ll give it up.”

Dr. Jim Gibson was hired in 1972 and retired in 2004, giving him 32 years at CSC. Dr. Randy Lawson came in 1974 and is beginning three-year phased retirement that will see him close the book in 2008 after 34 years.

For 30 years---from 1974 through 2004---they were together, sharing classrooms, laboratories, students and ideas. Late this spring, they got together at Druecker’s home to reflect on their careers and discuss the growth and success they observed.

“Our success was through students,” said Weedon. “We’ve turned out a lot of high- quality people for high-quality professions.”

Each of them can name former students who are now succeeding in the health professions, as wildlife biologists, researchers, science teachers and other fields where biology may not be a primary focus, but complements their careers.

Druecker came to Chadron State as an environmental biologist, but after a few years switched to human biology. “I was always interested in anatomy,” he explained. “Maybe it’s because I had worked in construction before I went to college. I like to see how things are built. Plus, I saw that our students who wanted to go into medicine needed someone who could help them meet that goal.”

For years, Gibson primarily taught zoology, limnology and genetics, but in the 1990s gave the department a big boost by developing courses in biotechnology, the expertise used to determine DNA.

Weedon’s specialty has been botany. He’s built an exceptional herbarium and continually studies ethnobiology to determine how plants have been and can be utilized.

Lawson taught general biology along with ornithology, entomology, parasitology and invertebrate biology. In particular, he has worked with the biology majors who became teachers.

“We had different presentation and different testing styles,” Weedon said. “By the time they (the students) got through with us they’d had a variety of experiences to draw on when they got to grad school or medical school.”

Admittedly, the curriculum was designed so biology majors had to take courses from all four of them before graduating.

Druecker said that early in his tenure at Chadron State a conscious decision was made to make the biology curriculum a rigorous one.

“We asked ourselves, ‘Are we going to water down our courses so everyone gets through them, or are we going to make them rigorous so when they get out they’ll succeed?’ We took the hard route and that proved to be our salvation. We decided our success would have to come through quality. After a while, students knew that if they succeeded in our courses they’d get into professional schools or med schools and do well once they got there.

“We pushed our students and they succeeded. As a result, we got more students and better students.”

Gibson recalled that a few years ago he was reviewing the material he had used the previous year for a genetics course. He had just decided it was good enough to use again when Druecker popped into his office with some new material on gene regulation or how cells regulate what proteins are produced.

“I was jarred out of my complacency real quick,” Gibson said. “I found it was tremendous stuff and added it to the course.”

The professors said they often shared information they had gleaned while reading or attending seminars. Then at least once a year they listed all the courses on the chalkboard and talked about changes that might be needed. In particular, they sought feedback from graduates and listened to stories about their experiences after leaving CSC.

“These assessments gave as a chance to ask ourselves how we could do things better,” said Lawson, who noted he continually sought the advice of high school teachers while visiting CSC biology majors who were student teaching.

The four said some landmark decisions were made that bolstered the department. They included:

--“Splitting out” cellular biology into a separate course in the early 1970s. “This put us ahead of most schools by about 20 years and forced our students to have a background in cellular biology, zoology and botany,” Druecker explained.

--Making anatomy and physiology a two-semester course, also in the early ‘70s.

--Offering vertebrate and invertebrate zoology as separate courses.

--Through Gibson’s leadership, adding the biotechnology segment in the early 1990s when it was just emerging.

The “frosting on the cake” occurred in 1990, when Chadron State was asked to join the University of Nebraska Medical Center in developing the Rural Health Opportunities Program. It brought the college dozens of outstanding students who were eager to become physicians, dentists, physician assistants, physical therapists, nurses, medical technologists and radiologists.

RHOP has made an impact across campus. A bulk of the members in several of the college’s honorary groups are health professions majors. CSC coaches have come to appreciate them, too. For instance, three health professions majors scored 49 points for the CSC track team at the conference meet this spring.

The four professors pointed out that while training students for the health professions is vital to the department and the college, biology has many other functions. “Environmental biology will always be important because we get a lot of students who love wildlife and the wide open spaces around here. That’s why some of our students come here for college,” Weedon remarked.

Weedon added that one of the pleasures of teaching at a small college is the chance to “really get to know the students.”

“It’s great when you learn afterwards that something you said either in class or casual conversation helped a student make a life-long, career-decision,” he said.

Lawson said several times he has been delighted when a student who had failed the first time he or she took his courses returned a couple of years later and did well.

Druecker believes the work ethic that he and the other biology professors demonstrated helped the students succeed.

“They saw that we worked hard and I think it inspired them,” he said. “I know we had a lot of great students, both in terms of ability and character.”